


Hold On

by AgainstTheEnd



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow series - Gemma T. Leslie
Genre: Canon Gay Relationship, Insecurity, Light Angst, M/M, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Post-Book(s), Post-Canon, Present Tense, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, SnowBaz, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-01 10:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6515683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgainstTheEnd/pseuds/AgainstTheEnd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accident of timing may help Simon and Baz move forward on the physical side of their relationship. </p><p>Takes place after the Leaver's Ball.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**SIMON**  


_I'm in trouble_.

It's a measure of how much my life has changed since Watford, that “trouble” no longer involves kidnappings or cranky supernatural creatures. No. Right now, I'm running late for dinner, and Baz never lets me hear the end of it when I'm less than punctual.

Come to think of it, I guess annoying my vampire boyfriend counts as cranky-supernatural-creature trouble. So much for progress.

I'm toweling my hair dry as I dash into my bedroom, so I don't even see Baz till I’ve almost run him over.

“Sorry! Nearly done!” I rush to get in the first word and try to head off any snark with a quick kiss. It works even better than I’d expected. He’s too startled to respond.

I slide the towel down onto my shoulders and try to keep the advantage by blathering about my classes, about the stack of books I slapped off a desk with my thrice-cursed invisible wings, which interrupted the professor and sent the poor confused book owner blushing.

I glance at Baz as I grab a fresh shirt from the closet, expecting a grin and a comment on my incurable lack of grace. “Just what you need, Snow, another three appendages to trip over,” he’s said before, tugging playfully at my absurd cartoon devil's tail.

But he isn't looking at me. He’s staring at the half-open door to the hallway like it’s a sign he’s having trouble reading.

Why isn't he looking at me?

  
**BAZ**

_I must not look at Snow. I must not look at Snow._

What is he thinking, prancing about wearing nothing but fuzzy towels at his neck and hips?

_Stop thinking about all that damp, glistening skin...about plunging my fingers into those dripping curls at the nape of his neck…about pushing him onto his unmade bed and…_

It’s been a week since we danced at my Leavers Ball, and in that time, Simon and I have spent a lot of time on that bed, but all of it more or less clothed.

It takes me a moment to notice he’s stopped talking. He was talking, wasn't he? Now he’s staring at me curiously, dropping his gathered clothes on the bed.

_No! Put those **on** , damn you._

But he doesn't. He just watches me with those blue eyes and an expression I can't fathom. “Have I done something wrong?” He asks, finally, hesitantly. Then he quirks a nervous smile and adds, “other than being late, I mean?”

The question breaks my heart a little, because he’s utterly blameless if I'm being fair. “Probably,” I say, letting old habits stall for me. “Knowing you.” I soften the lame barb by smiling at him and reaching for the door. Crowley, my control must really be slipping if that's all I can muster. “I’ll just wait out here for you to finish up. Where’s Bunce?”

“Out,” he answers as he slides between me and the exit. “C’mon, Baz.” He waits until I meet his gaze. “What is it?”

He’s too close. He smells too good. I can feel the heat and humidity of his body through my shirt and it’s all I can do not to crush him against that door he’s blocking. Crush him and kiss him and tug away his silly towels. I should... I should step away, get some distance, but at this moment it’s all I can do to stand still.

Simon leans back. The door clicks shut.

_Shit_.

  
**SIMON**

I’m really starting to worry about Baz now. He looks the way he sometimes does when he hasn't fed, but he’s flushed so I know he has.

He’s also insanely hot right now, with those stormy, almost feverish eyes. It’s so hard not to be distracted by the skin peeking from the vee of his shirt collar. I’ve seen him in his uniform for so long, it’s still oddly exotic to see him in street clothes. Designer street clothes that hug his body in all the right places…

I swallow and squash that line of thought, and in the process I slump back against the door. It closes with a sound that I can feel in the pit of my stomach. The wood is cold against my wings, abruptly reminding me I’m mostly naked.

_Shit_.

  
**BAZ**

_I’m in trouble_.

I've been trying so hard to give Simon time. Time to cope with the loss of his magic, his mentor, his destiny—hell, his whole fucked-up life. The last thing he needs is a horny boyfriend trying to get into his pants—or towels—and forcing him to figure out whether or not he’s actually gay—

And there it is. The real reason I haven't answered him. The real reason I’ve been giving him space. And time. The reason _I’m_ the one who backs off when our kisses turn too intimate.

The selfish, cowardly truth is this: I don't truly believe Simon feels for me what I feel for him.

I do trust that he loves me. But there are a lot of kinds of love, and they’re not always clearly marked. He spent most of our adolescence mooning over Wellbelove. I don't know how many “bases” they rounded in their relationship. I don't think I want to know. But clearly he wanted her.

Until the moment he impulsively kissed me in the woods, I don't think the idea of kissing a guy had ever crossed his mind. He’s still reluctant to label himself, but I don't care about that.

I’m scared to my core that as soon as we stray from familiar territory—from lips and tongues and teeth and hands—he’ll realize it's not what he wants. That I’m not what he wants. Not that way.

And, God help me, I’d rather go on as we are now, with our softcore snogging and unmolested towels, than gamble and lose. Because it's too much to lose.

  
**SIMON**

“I'm mostly naked. Shit.”

Brilliant. Shouldn't there be a filter between my brain and my mouth? Other people seem to have one. “Sorry. I mean, um, is that the problem?”

When I dated Agatha, she always set the pace for our relationship. When it was ok to kiss; what it was ok to touch. I’ve been looking to Baz for the same kinds of cues, and it just now occurred to me that if I’d greeted Agatha in nothing but a towel and then blocked her escape, I’d have ended up a dragon-winged, devil-tailed toad for my trouble.

Now, I wouldn’t normally put “Baz” and “maidenly sensibilities” in the same sentence, but he’s admitted he is (like me) a virgin and I know he does (unlike me) come from a respectable family. He’s also the first one to reach for my cross just when things are at their steamiest these days. Bollocks! That's why he's blushing now.

“Damn it, Baz. I'm a prize dolt. I didn't mean anything by it.” I tighten the towel around my waist, hopefully hiding the evidence that I’d love to mean something by it. “I was just rushing and didn't think.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Baz sounds like he’s trying for kind, but the words come out clipped. He’s still not really looking at me.

I have to make this right. I can't stand the idea of things being awkward between us. I put my hand on his arm. “Look, Baz. You know I want you, but I never want you to feel like I expect something from you that you don't want to give. If snogging is all you want right now, that's fine. I can wait. Hell, if you want to hold off for marriage… Hold on. Are you _laughing_?”


	2. Chapter 2

**BAZ**

I can’t help it. I have to laugh so I don’t punch his adorable, infuriatingly clueless face.

In a blink, I close the distance between us and grasp the towel on either side of his neck. His eyes are wide now, his mouth slightly agape in his startlement. The moisture from his panting chest is seeping through my shirt as I press against him, bringing my lips to his ear.

“There is nothing, _nothing_ you could expect from me that I don’t want to give.” I growl softly as I slide my hands down to grip the sides of his other towel. “Every part of me has been yours for the taking, almost from the moment we met.”    

That’s what I _want_ to do. That's what I _want_ to say.

Instead, I kill my laughter and cool my voice. “Morgana’s tits, Snow. Have you been saving that little speech from health ed, or did you deliver the same one to Wellbelove?” He flinches, and I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth, but somehow I can’t stop. With monumental effort, I step back and pretend to adjust my shirt cuff. “Now are you going to get your clothes on or shall I change our reservation to somewhere with a more flexible dress code?”

 

**SIMON**

“No.”

 

**BAZ**

“Excuse me?” It’s my turn to be surprised.

“No, I’m not getting dressed, and I’m not— _we’re_ not—going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.” Simon’s eyes have narrowed dangerously, a look I’d feared when his volatile magic was prone to go off in catastrophic ways. Even now, powerless and vulnerably human, he makes my heart skip a beat in apprehension as he stalks toward me. I take another step back, but immediately bump into the bureau. So suave.

“Out with it, Baz,” Simon snaps, impatiently yanking the towel from his neck and tossing it to the floor. Suddenly, that pool of pink terrycloth is all I can see.

“Your cross,” I whisper. “Where is it?”

“I don’t care,” he breathes, just before he seizes my face and kisses me.     

 

**SIMON**

Is this a mistake? Kissing Baz has never been a mistake before. But he’s not kissing me back.

His lips are cool. That’s familiar, but they’re also passive in a way I’ve never felt from him before. I tug his chin down and nip at his lower lip.

Nothing.

I slide my body against his, making the drawers at his back creak under the pressure.

Nothing.

I wind my fingers through his silky hair, anger making the move rougher than I’d meant. He gasps, and all at once he’s responding wildly. I wonder, for a moment, if this is what it feels like to be Baz's prey. To taste so much hunger and know it's all for you. That you're soon to be consumed by it. Baz pushes us away from the bureau and before I can catch my breath, I feel the bed smacking the backs of my legs.

“Alright?” Baz asks, his voice hoarse, shaking. I feel his fingers slipping under the towel at my waist. His lips move to my ear, then kiss their way down my throat to that spot just above my collar bone that he knows drives me mad.

I can’t say the word. _Why can’t I say it?_ But I nod and I reach for the buttons on his shirt. It’s enough.

 

**BAZ**

_Snakes and cinders, this is a mistake._

And it’s everything I want. Everything I've wanted through a thousand hopeless, heartsick nights. I’d sooner stop breathing than stop kissing him now.

Simon unfastens one button. Then another. Do I hear it? Even with vampire ears, I shouldn't hear it, should I—each one sliding free? I feel him tugging my shirttail from my trousers, and I realize my own hands are still frozen at his waist.

“Baz?” His hands are on my cheeks again, bringing our faces back together.

 _Shhh_. I squeeze my eyes shut to avoid that blue gaze, to preserve one more moment of this beautiful insanity. I press my lips fiercely to his.

Twenty heartbeats. Forty. They’re Simon’s. I can feel them where our bodies meet, the cage of his chest hot on mine. He’s not holding my face anymore. He’s dragging my shirt down my shoulders, fingernails rasping along my spine.

I could let him strip it off.

I could wait for his hands to reach for my belt buckle. 

I break our kiss, suck in a breath at the thought of his fingertips on my bare stomach. Each one an ember. Each one a star.

I rest my forehead against his and I have to face it: this isn't _everything_ I want.

 

**SIMON**

“Hold on, Simon.”

Baz’s voice is so quiet, I can barely hear him over my own noisy breathing. Thank magic I took those few precious moments to brush my teeth, I think dumbly.

Even so, I should try to stop panting into his face. That can't be sexy, can it? Though, I can feel Baz’s breath against my lips as he’s talking, and the sensation is making it hard to concentrate on his words—

“Wait, what?” I can't have heard that last bit properly.

“It isn't fair to you, to expect—”

I snort. In his face. Sexy be damned. “And you call _me_ thick.”

“I’m serious, Si—”

“You're seriously a lunatic if you think I don't know exactly what I want when it comes to you.”

His eyes grow wide, and I keep looking into them, trying to—I don't know— _stare_ him into believing me. “Cross my heart—”

Baz yelps and slaps a hand over my mouth before he remembers I can't actually cast the spell (that “hope to die” part has real teeth, coming from a magician). After a moment, he relaxes. I think can actually see the tension flowing out of his shoulders. A smile touches his grey eyes.

“In that case, I have just one question.”

I raise my eyebrows, since he’s still covering my mouth.

“How many more moles am I going to find under this towel?”

 


End file.
